After unveiling the preferred design for six miles of the Woodhaven Boulevard Select Bus Service project earlier this week, DOT and MTA met yesterday with advocates, elected officials, and community board members to go into greater detail. The agencies are considering physical separation for bus lanes at key locations on Woodhaven, and they showed potential designs for the southern stretch of the project on Cross Bay Boulevard.

Sources who attended the meeting said DOT is looking into separating bus lanes with flexible posts, small “armadillo” bollards, or a mountable curb like the one installed on a block of the Sands Street bike lane.

Select Bus Service would run on the Q52 and Q53 lines. Click to enlarge. Map: DOT/MTA [PDF].

Camera enforcement could also keep drivers out of the bus lane, but bus cams on Woodhaven will require state legislation. Either way, it appears DOT is interested in more than just cameras. “[DOT staff] seem to recognize that they can’t count on photo enforcement, even with legislation authorizing it,” said Glendale resident Toby Sheppard Bloch, who went to yesterday’s meeting. “They said that they don’t think paint is good enough.”

The agency confirmed that it is looking at some type of separation for bus lanes on Woodhaven, and its presentation yesterday [PDF] shows a variety of barriers and rumble strips as options.

The presentation also shows how DOT would redesign the Cross Bay Boulevard section of the project (Woodhaven turns into Cross Bay south of Liberty Avenue). The Cross Bay designs call for dedicated bus lanes between the parking lane and general traffic lanes, which is a typical configuration on other SBS routes. The designs would also expand the center median, currently six feet wide, and add trees.

“They put a pretty heavy emphasis on placemaking, on making the boulevard more attractive,” Bloch said of DOT’s presentation.

One option would maintain three car lanes in each direction, creating space for dedicated bus lanes and a slightly wider median by narrowing the general traffic lanes. The better option would add bus lanes while trimming the general traffic lanes to two in each direction. In this scenario, the median would be up to 22 feet wide at some crossings and 12 feet wide at crossings with left-turn pockets.

NYC DOT has selected a design for Select Bus Service on Woodhaven and Cross Bay Boulevards, and it goes further than previous SBS projects to keep bus lanes clear of cars.

Under the proposal, buses would run in dedicated lanes set off from local traffic by concrete medians. While the bus lanes wouldn’t be physically separated from through traffic, the design avoids conflicts that have limited the performance of other SBS routes. In the Woodhaven design, buses won’t operate in a lane that attracts drivers trying to access the curb. Turning conflicts at intersections will also be minimized, with motorists turning right from Woodhaven merging across the bus lane mid-block to access the service road.

DOT said it expects the project to improve travel times 25 to 35 percent for the 30,000 daily bus passengers on the corridor.

“This is the kind of ambitious overhaul New York City’s bus riders deserve. This project means faster trips for tens of thousands of riders,” Mayor de Blasio said in a press release. “It means safer streets that save lives. And it means that communities from the Rockaways to Elmhurst that have long been underserved by public transit will see real improvements in their daily commute.”

The design is the same as “Concept 2″ revealed at public workshops last fall, where bus riders and advocates gave it high marks, along with “Concept 3,” which called for a center-running busway [PDF]. The city says the central 6 miles of the 14-mile Woodhaven/Cross Bay project will have the Concept 2 configuration, according to the Daily News. The project will also feature standard SBS ingredients like off-board fare collection and traffic signals that hold green lights for buses. More details may be revealed at a Queens Community Board 5 meeting scheduled for tonight.

The BRT for NYC coalition recently released this short video that succinctly makes the case for change on Woodhaven Boulevard in southeast Queens. If you haven’t personally experienced Woodhaven as a pedestrian or bus rider, it’s a good introduction to what’s at stake as NYC DOT and the MTA move forward with a project to improve transit service and street safety along more than 14 miles of this major corridor.

Improving travel times and reliability for the tens of thousands of people who ride the bus on Woodhaven every day will have to go hand in hand with improvements to the pedestrian environment. As you can see in the video, Woodhaven is so wide that people have to run to reach the other side of the street. All of the design options that NYC DOT has shown add more space for walking.

With Donovan Richards, Eric Ulrich, and every other City Council member whose district touches the project on the record supporting major changes, there’s a chance to do something bold and great on Woodhaven. The next round of design work for the project may be released early next year.

In one option, “Concept 2,” buses would run in dedicated lanes next to through traffic, keeping local traffic, drop-offs, and deliveries to service lanes and out of the way of buses. Image: NYC DOT

NYC DOT and the MTA have developed three design concepts for Select Bus Service on Woodhaven Boulevard and Cross Bay Boulevard in southeast Queens, and two of them go further than previous SBS routes to keep cars from slowing down buses [PDF]. All of the options include some measures to shorten crossing distances for pedestrians on one of the city’s widest and most dangerous streets.

The Woodhaven SBS project, which covers a 14.4-mile corridor running from the Rockaways to Woodside, is the biggest street redesign effort in NYC right now. All the City Council members along the route have said they want big changes, and the concepts on display last night indicate that DOT and the MTA can deliver.

Agency representatives showed the three designs at an open house in Ozone Park where residents could leave written comments on posterboards. City Council Member Eric Ulrich told me he liked what he saw, and bus riders and transit advocates were especially keen on “Concept 2″ and “Concept 3,” which would create clearer paths for buses. Here’s a rundown of how each option would work.

A new episode in a long-running conflict has cropped up in Ozone Park: A community group worked with the city to install a pedestrian plaza, but merchants, blaming poor sales on changes to traffic patterns, parking, and plaza upkeep, want the public space removed. A special forum hosted last Thursday by Queens Community Board 10 and DOT gave the two sides a chance to air their views in advance of potential changes. But plaza supporters say the merchants themselves are part of the problem.

A plaza in Ozone Park is nearly a year old. Many nearby merchants, saying it’s killing business, want it removed. Image: DOT

Public space is so scarce in Ozone Park that local children use a nearby municipal parking lot as a playing field. The plaza, installed last fall to carve out some more community space, is backed by the Bangladeshi American Community Development and Youth Services Corporation (BACDYS) as a maintenance partner. Early plans called for it to be installed a couple blocks away in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, but DOT found the design would be better in Ozone Park. The agency held outreach meetings and secured support from, among others, Council Member Eric Ulrich, community boards in both boroughs, and local businesses.

But many business owners in the area are crying foul, saying the plaza has ruined business. They gathered dozens of signatures and outnumbered plaza supporters at last week’s meeting. “We need to remove this plaza,” said Ozone Park Discount Variety and Hardware co-owner Hasib Ali, who estimated that three-quarters of his customers arrive by car. “All customers come in to complain about parking.” Ali’s business partner, Ahmad Ubayda, said shop owners will be hiring an attorney to fight the plaza.

“I do not want this plaza in front of my business. It’s killing the very existence of my business,” said Khemraj Sadoo, owner of Ozone Park First Class Laundry. “We need that plaza to move from there. We need two-way traffic once again.”

The plaza design, which pedestrianized a short section of Drew Street to connect a triangle-shaped pedestrian island with a nearby block, also extends up one block of 101st Avenue, from Drew Street to 76th Street. That block was converted from two-way car traffic to one-way westbound traffic. The plaza resulted in a net loss of what DOT Queens Borough Commissioner Dalila Hall described as “maybe one or two spots” for parking.

To ensure the plan wouldn’t have an outsize negative impact on parking, Hall said the agency performed surveys of parking occupancy before and after the plaza was implemented, and added parking meters to Liberty Avenue in an effort to improve turnover and access for customers. “Most of the time, those on-street parking spots are empty,” Hall said of 101st Avenue. “You could always find a spot if you drove up.”

We can rebuild Woodhaven Boulevard as a great transit street. We have the space.

The proposal to improve bus service on Woodhaven Boulevard and Cross Bay Boulevard in Queens is the most exciting street redesign in the works in New York City right now, with the potential to break new ground for bus riders and dramatically improve safety. With as many as five lanes in each direction, Woodhaven Boulevard has plenty of space that can be devoted to exclusive transitways and concrete pedestrian safety measures.

NYC DOT and the MTA are holding a series of public workshops to inform the project, with initial improvements scheduled for this year and more permanent changes coming later. This is a chance for the city and the MTA to build center-running transit lanes that will speed bus trips more than previous Select Bus Service routes, where buses often have to navigate around illegally-parked cars. Critical design decisions could be made this summer.

Kathi Ko at the Tri-State Transportation Campaign has filed dispatches from the first round of public meetings, and she reports that participants ranged from change-averse to eager for “big and bold ideas.”

Of course, it’s the change-averse who sit on the community boards and are getting most of the local press attention. Queens Community Board 9 transportation committee chair Kenichi Wilson told DOT that “the only way I would support” the project is if it doesn’t affect curbside parking, according to the Queens Chronicle. At an earlier meeting, the first vice chair of Queens CB 10, John Calcagnile, predicted that the elimination of parking to make way for interim bus lanes “will have a real negative effect on businesses in the area.”

Experience with Select Bus Service suggests otherwise. Along Fordham Avenue in the Bronx, parking was eliminated and meters were added to side streets in order to run curbside buses for the city’s first SBS route. Merchants objected at first, but three years later, retail sales had improved 71 percent — triple the borough-wide average.

Drivers have killed at least five pedestrians and cyclists on Rockaway Boulevard since January 2013. Image: Google Maps

Hit-and-run drivers killed a pedestrian and a cyclist in Brooklyn and Queens this weekend.

Sunday night at around 9:30, a 40-year-old man riding a bike on Rockaway Boulevard near 90th Street was struck by the driver of a Mercedes van, according to reports. NYPD told the media the driver sideswiped the cyclist from behind and ran him over. The driver then stopped, exited the van to look at the victim, got back in and drove away, police said. As of this morning, NYPD had not released the victim’s name and the driver remained at large.

The cyclist was at least the fourth person killed by a driver while biking or walking in the 102nd Precinct this year, according to crash data compiled by Streetsblog, and at least the fifth pedestrian or cyclist killed by a motorist on Rockaway Boulevard since January 2013. Yesterday’s crash occurred in the City Council district represented by Eric Ulrich.

On Saturday morning, the driver of a Nissan Altima hit Felipe Castro Palacios, 27, on Third Avenue near Seventh Street in Gowanus, outside the auto repair shop where he worked, according to reports. From the Daily News:

Palacios was repairing a Ford Expedition parked halfway on the sidewalk in front of Samba Transmission & Auto Repair on Third Ave. near Seventh St. in Gowanus when a black Nissan Altima slammed into him and two parked cars at about 7:30 a.m., cops said.

The mechanic was hurtled head-first into the back of a parked Dodge Venture minivan, blowing the back window out, witnesses said.

Police identified the car as a rental but had not located the driver as of Sunday. The crash that killed Felipe Castro Palacios occurred in the 78th Precinct, and in the council district represented by Brad Lander.

This weekend’s victims were at least the fourth and fifth hit-and-run fatalities of the year. Starting in July 2015, NYPD will be required to report to the City Council on hit-and-run crashes and investigations. Of 60 fatal hit-and-runs investigated in 2012, NYPD arrested just 15 drivers, according to Transportation Alternatives.

The Uni set up a portable library for the November 2 grand opening of the Ozone Park plaza. Photo: DOT/The Uni

The intersection of Liberty Avenue and 101st Avenue sits on the border of Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, and Ozone Park, Queens. A few blocks from the A train and surrounded by small businesses, it’s a natural hub for the neighborhood, but the road configuration gave over large areas of the angled intersection to cars. Last year, the Bangladeshi American Community Development and Youth Services Corp. (BACDYS) applied to DOT’s plaza program, and last month, the finishing touches were put on the new plaza space.

BACDYS, the maintenance partner for the plaza, hosted a grand opening celebration on November 2, featuring portable library set up by The Uni Project, which brings books to sidewalks and public plazas across the city.

During the planning process, DOT had discussed a few design concepts with the community, including a plaza on the south side of the intersection along Liberty Avenue. The final result creates a plaza that stretches along 101st Avenue, which was converted from two-way to one-way traffic flow, and on Drew Street between 101st and Liberty Avenues.

The plan was refined during public workshops in May and August, and received support from Council Member Eric Ulrich, U.S. Representatives Nydia Velasquez and Ed Towns, Brooklyn Community Board 5, Queens CB 9, and a number of adjacent businesses.

Ulrich’s office tells Streetsblog that a few business owners were upset with the loss of 11 parking spaces. Two weeks ago, Ulrich held a meeting with merchants and DOT to discuss potential changes to the plaza, including a reduction in its size to restore a few of the parking spaces that were removed.

Pedestrian plazas planned for 94th Street and Liberty Avenue. The elevated tracks of the A train run over Liberty Ave. Image: NYCDOT

One of the most dangerous intersections in Queens is slated for a DOT safety makeover. At a meeting of Queens Community Board 10 last Thursday, DOT presented a plan [PDF] to rework the chaotic intersection of Crossbay Boulevard, Woodhaven Boulevard, Rockaway Boulevard, and Liberty Avenue in Ozone Park by turning two full street blocks into pedestrian plazas and introducing a host of other safety improvements.

With seven bus lines, a subway station, and major thoroughfares that are highly conducive to speeding when rush-hour subsides, this jumble of roads is a safety disaster. Between 2004 and 2008, 207 traffic injuries happened there, including three pedestrian fatalities, which makes the intersection one of the most dangerous intersections in Queens, according to DOT.

In response, the agency is proposing to turn one block of 94th Street and one block of Liberty Avenue into pedestrian areas. Also in the plan: installing pedestrian refuge islands and new crosswalks, lengthening pedestrian crossing times, and daylighting intersections by removing the parking spots nearest to the corner. According to the Queens Chronicle, DOT plans to begin implementation in September, although CB 10's chairwoman has asked to hold off until plans for the nearby Aqueduct Race Track are finalized.

NYLCV is sending out 12,000 mailers for the February 24 City Council special election in southern Queens.

On the scale of absurd political theater, fare hike hearings in New York City rank very close to the top. Elected officials heap scorn on the MTA, diverting attention from their own responsibility for underfunding transit, while beleaguered
straphangers beg board members for a reprieve that depends on those same electeds. It's a cycle of frustration, blame, and unaccountability.

How to change the equation? An intriguing attempt is currently unfolding in southern Queens, where, in less than a month, voters will choose a replacement for Joseph Addabbo, who left the City Council following his election to the State Senate in November.

The New York League of Conservation Voters and the Campaign for New York's Future have launched a voter education campaign devoted to transportation issues in the 32nd council district, a car-dependent area that includes Ozone Park, Broad Channel, and part of the Rockaways. "So many folks head to the polls and they think about how their candidates stand on education, or what their stance is on guns and crime," says Dan Hendrick of the NYLCV. "The objective of this campaign is to make sure that transportation and mass transit are voting issues as well."